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I just had the chance to drive an early-build Leaf here in Michigan on a brief route near Nissan‘s Technical Center. A thorough evaluation will have to wait a few more weeks when the Leaf gets its shot at possibly becoming Motor Trend‘s first-ever fully electric Car of the Year (Editor’s Note: We have just learned that Nissan will not be able to provide cars to us for this year’s event), but this drive was sufficient to answer the question: Is it a real car?

Well, it certainly feels like a real GREEN car. From the driver’s seat, the general ambiance and feel of the controls reminds me a lot of the plug-in Prius. Various dashboard screens and readouts bombard the driver with copious data to help eke the most distance out of the least energy possible. For their size, each feels heavy (the Leaf weighs 3600 pounds, 600 of which is the battery pack). Engage Drive via a peculiar shifter in either, and it will accelerate bunny-quick off the line; but launching like that feels so naughty that you reflexively engage the ECO mode (by moving the shifter down to the Drive spot again) for the rest of the trip, allowing the electronics to impose Puritanical patience on your progress unless you floor the pedal. In both cars, the electric power steering renders the same pinky-finger parking assist and provides the same rheostatic lack of road-feel at speed.

The Leaf’s low center of gravity keeps the cornering reasonably flat, and while the low-rolling-resistance tires give up their grip at modest cornering loads, at least they do so without much squealing. I was pleased not to notice any transition from regenerative to hydraulic braking. The faint whistling noise the car makes to warn blind pedestrians of its approach was inaudible until I lowered a window. I could just faintly hear the beeping in reverse with the radio off.

To this double-sheepskinned car geek, the Leaf’s various displays aimed at range maximization are a constant source of inspiration and amusement. Up in the top left corner of the upper display, there’s an electronic gauge that lights up more elements the more gently you drive. Keep up the good work, and you gradually grow a pine tree. Continued parsimonious (and not too traffic-inhibiting) driving regrows that tree three more times, leaving a forest of small trees next to the gauge.

Down in the main cluster viewed through the steering wheel, you have an arc of circles that light up to show how much power is being expended or regenerated, a voltmeter, and a traditional “fuel gauge” display with an inset showing miles remaining. When this drops to four kilowatt-hours left (16-20 miles of range), the nav screen switches to show all nearby quick-charge stations and output steps down to preserve range. Climate control output is curtailed, top speed is reduced, and the driver is unmistakably notified that it’s almost time to juice up.

This list of available charging stations will be updated periodically via Nissan’s own satellite service called Carwings, which runs kind of like OnStar (with a headquarters in Japan beaming info through leased satellites pointed at this continent). The only station that showed up on our suburban-Detroit map was the one at Nissan’s Tech Center, but there will soon be 3670 of them in California, 1464 in Washington, 1350 in Tennessee, and 1150 each in Oregon and Arizona. These are the states in which the Leaf launches first this December, followed by Texas and Hawaii in January, seven Gulf and Atlantic states in April, and nationwide by fall 2011. Nissan claims there should be 12,000 quick-charge stations up and running by the end of next year, but clearly the goal is for people to install charging stations at home for regular daily charging (eight hours with the 220-volt line, considerably longer with 110-volts), and for these quick-charge places to serve only in case of emergency. Nissan says battery damage can occur if the car is “quick-charged” more than twice per day, so this ain’t the rig for a non-stop California-to-Washington state drive, even if the I-5 corridor is eventually covered with sufficient charging stations.

Speaking of battery damage, Nissan envisions a 10-year useful life, after which only 70-80 percent of its original capacity remains. At that point, the packs will be dismantled and the flat, laminated cells reassembled into larger (100-kWhr or more) packs for power companies to store wind and solar energy in. Nissan also claims it can economically replace defective cells in the Leaf’s 24 kWhr pack.

Other cool EV-only features accessible on the Nav screen include a map showing two circles around the car — one of which is the radius you can reach with enough juice to return and the other the no-return range. There’s a screen that shows instantaneous kilowatt usage of the motor, the climate control system, and all other systems, so you can see the impact of changing your temperature or fan settings. Hypermilers will no doubt Rain-X their windshields so as to avoid the parasitic loss of the windshield wipers. Then there are the typical graphs indicating instantaneous and historical “economy” in miles/kWhr. Then there’s a screen for scheduling recharges via timer. There will also, of course, be smart-phone apps for monitoring all of this and more, and for “preconditioning” the cabin while plugged in.

The rest of the car is pretty darned carlike. The rear seat is commodious, but the floor feels high (the batteries are down there, remember), which forces my knees up higher than I’d like and limits thigh support. Fold the seatbacks down and there’s a rather high pass-through to the cargo area (the onboard charger lives just behind the folded seatbacks), but there’s room for two sets of golf clubs (not that I’m inferring the Leaf is a glorified golf cart, mind you!).

Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn sure hopes regular folks find the Leaf normal enough to buy 550,000 of them by 2013, because the company is constructing and repurposing plants around the world to provide that many. Certainly the price seems reasonable, at $32,780 list for the base SV, which still gets navigation, Bluetooth, and everything you really need. That’s before the $7500 federal tax credit (applicable to anyone filing a normal tax return with at least $7500 of tax liability) or state credits as high as $5000 (California and Oregon). Don’t want to fuss with tax forms? Lease it and Nissan claims the credit, rolling it into the $349/month price. Given the low operating costs (with no oil, filters, timing belts, etc. to maintain) and comparatively low energy cost (national average electricity pricing equates to roughly $1.10/gallon gas), it seems a fairly compelling value. After all, the 19,000 folks who have reportedly put deposits down can’t ALL be Ed Begley/Al Gore acolytes.